Who Leaked What?

Fitzgerald’s investigation has included interviews with President Bush; former secretary of state Colin L. Powell; Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove; Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby; and others. Under arrangements that did not involve them identifying confidential sources, four reporters — Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, NBC Washington Bureau chief Tim Russert, and Cooper — have already answered a limited number of questions from the prosecutor.

On Saturday, Rove’s attorney said that Rove spoke with Cooper during the critical period in July 2003, just after Wilson’s piece appeared, when reporters were calling the White House to ask questions about Wilson’s assertions. But he said that Rove did not reveal Plame’s identity and that Fitzgerald has assured him Rove is not a target of the investigation.

Fitzgerald may learn more details from Cooper’s notes. Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials — not the other way around — that Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA employee.

Well wouldn’t that just put O’Donnell and the “Rove leaked Plame” crowd on their heads?

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15 Comments

No, they’ll just move the goalposts and claim Rove planted the suggestion in Jeff Gannon’s ear to tell the other reporter ro ask the question. Or something similiar, I’m not good with whacko conspiracy theories.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, because you know that Republicans are the most evil beings in all of the universe, because they are white and believe in a god other than Gaea and are selfish.

kev-oJuly 6, 2005

Can someone help me understand who Novak is and how he’s not at the center of this story? What’s his connection to Cooper?

bullwinkleJuly 6, 2005

We need to be careful, we’re talking about some extremely soft heads here.

DelphiGuyJuly 6, 2005

But how will this fit with my world view that Karl Rove is evil?

Ah screw it, we can just ignore it and still whine about Rove being a traitor, and if you disagree you are just blindly loyal to the actions of Bushitler.

/liberal thinking

DanJuly 6, 2005

Rove Was Fired For Leaking A Damaging Story About GOP Fundraiser. Esquire’s Ron Suskind reported that, “Sources close to the former president [George H.W. Bush] say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted.”

For more…..

[White House Briefing, 9/29/03; Esquire, 1/2003 Issue]

DelphiGuyJuly 6, 2005

And John Kerry’s brother was involved in breaking into a political opponents offices, but that hardly makes him Nixon now does it?

Given the waiver Rove has signed, then it seems either Rove is not the leak, or these people are too dumb to be out on the street. I’m betting Rove gave a name, and they filled in the blanks and blurted out her job thus blowing her ‘cover’. Hence Rove’s cagey responses and their reluctance to admit that they outed her despite Rove’s waiver.

bullwinkleJuly 7, 2005

We cannot rest until we see these reporters handcuffed and doing the frogwalk out of the NYT offfices. I’m patiently waiting for all the lefties to join me in this. As a matter of fact, where are those lefties? They should have beaten me here to call for justice in this terrible case of treason.

BRJuly 7, 2005

Hee hee, Bullwinkle. I’m not often given to schadenfreude, but really, this two-year ballyhoo cooked up to impeach Bush sure flopped.

Big hat tip to commenter “Fresh Air” who wrote there at 5:30 PM:
“The perfect candidate is Greg Thielman, though there are surely others.”

I’ve just begun Googling “Greg Thielman NSC” – here’s a list of articles so far, if anyone wants to peruse with me.

(Seeing “Fresh Air” again brings back memories of the “early days” of pajamahood: “Fresh Air” was a very bright sleuth at Ace of Spades’ site and perhaps elsewhere too, during CBSgate. It’s like old home week 🙂 )

[PS – Yoohoo, Fresh Air, if you ever read this: I still had an unanswered question to you and your e-mail didn’t work: How did you find out Lukasiak’s ISP is in Massachusetts? I only found BlueHost in Utah.]

bullwinkleJuly 7, 2005

OK, moonbats, where are you? Do we need to put out Kool-Aid and play Springsteen music to draw you in? There’s some treason going on and it calls for a lot of frog-walking. Flap your little wings and fly on over here and get behind the movement to put some lefties in jail for treason. We’re all waiting……

BRJuly 7, 2005

Came across an interesting item while Googling Thielman: a disgruntled NSC staffer who left in mid 2003: Rand Beers.

Billmon’s 6/16/03 post is entitled “The New Deep Throat”:

[Quotes from Washington Post 6/15/03] “…Rand Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism.”

“…Beers, a lifelong bureaucrat, unassuming and tight-lipped until now. He is an unlikely insurgent. He served on the NSC under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and the current Bush. The oath of office hangs on the wall by his bed; he tears up when he watches ‘The West Wing.’ Yet Beers decided that he wanted out, and he is offering a rare glimpse in.”

“…When he finally decided to quit, he drove to a friend’s house in Arlington. [Richard] Clarke, his old counterterrorism pal, took one look at the haggard man on his stoop and opened a bottle of Russian River Pinot Noir. Then he opened another bottle. Clarke toasted Beers, saying: You can still fight the fight.”

“… The government’s first counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke, who left his White House job in February after more than 10 years….”

“…Eight weeks after leaving the Bush White House, he [Rand Beers] volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a Democratic candidate for president, in a campaign to oust his former boss. All of which points to a question: What does this intelligence insider know?”

So, my next question is – who is the NSC staffer who had “worked with” Valerie Plame? One and the same, or someone else? Or could *David Corn’s “worked with” mean “liaised with,” as is probable in Rand Beers’ case.

“…After I learned from reliable sources the identity of a current [?] National Security Council staffer who once worked with Valerie Wilson at the CIA in weapons counterproliferation, I wondered whether I should make the name of this person public, and I contacted the CIA. This NSC staffer might–I emphasize, might–play a role in the Wilson leak scandal…”

BRJuly 8, 2005

Does anyone have the EXACT date Rand Beers left the NSC in 2003? It seems Richard Clarke left in Feb 03, and Beers shortly thereafter. By June 03, the WaPo reports that Beers volunteered to be Kerry’s national security advisor “8 weeks” afterwards. Novak and the other reporters seemed to have spoken to their sources about Wilson/Plame connection between July 6 -13th, 2003. So when exactly, I wonder, was Rand Beers’ last day in the NSC offices?

“Miller would not ask her sources to waive their anonymity. She said intelligence officials might feel coerced into admitting they had talked to a reporter.”

It seems to me more and more that the last holdout, Judith Miller, is protecting someone in the wide category of “intelligence officials.” And Fitzgerald not only wants her source, but what else that source may have illegally disclosed to her.

“…on page 6 of the U.S. Court of Appeals decision of Feb 15 of this year. It refers to and quotes from grand jury subpoenas of August 12 and 14 seeking documents and testimony related conversations between her [Judith Miller] and the specified government official ‘occurring from on or about July 6, 2003, to on or about July 13, 2003, . . . concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether referred to by name or by description as the wife of Ambassador Wilson) or concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium.’ “

BRJuly 8, 2005

The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia’s site contains some conflicting dates for two of the NSC staff (Clarke, who wrote a Bush-bashing book released March 04 and Beers, who turned on Bush in favor of Kerry sometime before mid June 03). Both were leftovers of the Clinton administration’s NSC and State Dept: